Ingredients

Instructions:

Shake whisky, vermouth, and bitters* well with cracked ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish as you would a Manhattan, with a twist of lemon or, if you must, a cherry.

For the inevitable variation, see the Borden Chase.

* Angostura bitters are standard, although both the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book and the Stork Club Bar Book -- authorities of worth and probity -- suggest orange bitters; listen to them. You can get the stuff from Fee Bros., 716-544-9530.

The Wondrich Take:

Henry Louis Reginald De Koven was born on April 3, 1859, in Middletown, Connecticut. He then proceeded to do a bunch of other stuff that culminated in his writing a sheaf of operettas for the national stage. Twenty-nine, by our count. Now, Reginald De Koven's music seemed to have a certain quality of déjà entendu which, while not necessarily posing a handicap when it came to drilling his melodies through the wax-plugged earholes of the shirtwaisted and mustachioed masses, did tend to excite a certain amount of comment in the profession, thus:

Enter VAUDEVILLE COMEDIAN, whistling tune.

VAUDEVILLE STRAIGHT MAN: Isn't that De Koven?

VAUDEVILLE COMEDIAN: Not yet!

Applause

It didn't help matters that his two most successful shows (and they were pretty damn successful) were Robin Hood -- Robbin' Ludwig, they called it -- from 1890 and, of course, 1894's Rob Roy. Hence the drink.

It used to be a common practice to baptize a new show with its own cocktail (What'll it be? a Sexual Perversity in Chicago or a Miss Saigon -- or a Little Mermaid on Ice?). Thus such forgotten delights as the Chocolate Soldier, the Peg O' My Heart, the Florodora. All quite tipplesome, but none with the legs of the Rob Roy. We attribute this to the lack of karmic individuation between the drink and the show. You see, like De Koven's music, there is a touch of the cut-and-paste to the Rob Roy. It's simply a Manhattan with Scotch instead of rye (Rob Roy being a Scottish national hero of some sort -- though not the one who painted his buttocks blue and waggled them at the English). Yet the result isn't bad. Perhaps a little odd, but in the long run quite rewarding. And obtainable in joints that only know rye as a vehicle for ham and Swiss cheese.

We'd say the drink has outlasted the music, but -- "O Promise Me," that thing your ears tend to stumble into at certain kinds of wedding? De Koven's.